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Thursday, September 10, 2015

Welcome to The Fall Preview/Review, a look at how each broadcast network
fared on each night of the schedule in 2014-15. These are basically the
Schedules Plus Updates
from last year, except now arranged by day of the week and with a teeny
bit more focus on what's to come in fall 2015. 2014-15 year-to-year
changes are in parentheses, while "VsAvg" compares 2014-15 to the full
historical average and "Rank" ranks 2014-15 against all available
previous occupants. Each network name links back to its now updated
Schedules Plus post for this day of the week.
More Preview/Reviews: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Sunday

ABC made its two-hour Shonda Rhimes drama block into a three-hour Shonda Rhimes drama block, and it became one of the biggest three-hour nights on television. Grey's Anatomy was somehow just barely down in Plus in the move to 8/7c, which allowed them to effectively replace the awful 8/7c occupants with another Scandal-sized player in 10/9c's How to Get Away with Murder. Things came undone somewhat in the spring, when Murder replacement American Crime (69) tanked and Scandal infamously shed 1.2 points in just five episodes. But ABC is hoping it'll all come back together when Murder returns to the saddle this fall.

Thursday Night Football means the CBS Thursday lineup is now held several weeks into the regular season. CBS had some good news on this night as Mom impressed both at 8:30 and in its stint in the 9:00 hour, and Two and a Half Men had a decent final season. But there was also bad news as Elementary and new comedy The McCarthys really didn't do anything. With even more interruptions on the horizon this fall, Elementary stays put at 10/9c, and Angel from Hell slots right in where The McCarthys failed.

The narrative at the 2014 upfront was that NBC was phoning it in on Thursday in the fall, and their real push would come when The Blacklist arrived in February. But in the end, the midseason lineup was actually no better than the fall one. Yes, even a disappointingly diminished The Blacklist (averaged a 100 for Thursday episodes) was a huge improvement, but it was surrounded by megabombs in The Slap (45) and Allegiance (51). NBC will take another stab at surrounding The Blacklist with dramas, hoping there is still some interest to be mined from late-aughts genre drama Heroes with a limited series revival at 8/7c.

As on Wednesday, Fox found itself nowhere close to the ratings of cancelled The X Factor in the fall. Unlike on Wednesday, it couldn't turn things around at midseason, as new drama Backstrom (60) went one-and-done. Things probably won't get too much better this fall as the network phones it in with two declining veterans. It feels like the end is finally getting near for Bones, but it gets one more shot in the Thursday lead-off role. At 9/8c is fall 2013 smash Sleepy Hollow, which dropped massively in season two (92).

The only thing keeping the CW from good news on every weeknight was a pretty disastrous season on what has usually been one of its brightest nights. Aging The Vampire Diaries (which had to face Grey's Anatomy for the first time) fell to a series low Plus by a wide margin. Its sophomore lead-out Reign was down even more, making it the clear weakest link on the net's weeknight sked. The CW will try to hold this night together with the old regime for one more year by moving TVD spin-off The Originals into the 9/8c hour.